[osipovas]

This will be frustrating when Google decides (as they always do) to stop supporting the older hardware. I use the Home Edition for my parent's computer. The update process is virtually seamless for my parents and it just works.

What to do when they end support...

[notatoad]

ChromeOS has been going through a big process to divorce the browser updates from the operating system updates, so that they can continue to deliver updates to the browser itself even after older hardware stops being supported.

as it is, you can keep using the old hardware after support ends, you'll just have an outdated browser and linux kernel. In the future, that problem should be reduced to just having an outdated kernel.

[buck4roo]

Is there a similar project that releases current Android distros for post-end-of-support android phones?

[chaosharmonic]

If I were splitting hairs about it I wouldn't personally call the bulk of them "distros," if only because the overall Android ecosystem is that much more homogeneous compared to one like GNU. The extent to which features or visual tweaks are added will vary, but your underlying system will generally be the same regardless of whether you're running LineageOS, Paranoid Android, Carbon or most others. (Some exceptions include Bliss, which maintains a desktop-focused x86 build; /e/, which is specifically built around MicroG; and GrapheneOS, a hardened build specifically for Pixels.)

With that said though -- yes, if you're into modding or general preservation there are a variety of community spins of Android, and potentially even a small scattering of other Linux-based systems depending on your device.

Now that Android requires the use of a GSI -- or generic system image -- in testing, device compatibility is also significantly better than it used to be. That said, you're still limited to those that support bootloader unlocking. (Notably, while they don't implement this internationally, if you're US-based Samsung is out.) Additionally, GSIs will still have edge cases around drivers (since they don't have to actually work on production devices), Google apps generally have to be loaded separately, and even then the act of opening your bootloader to begin with trips SafetyNet -- which breaks everything from banking apps (for the sensitive-data protections this was originally intended to cover) to Netflix (for DRM) to various games (for anti-cheat) to... Snapchat for some reason?

Where this starts to really get exciting is that, over the next year or two, that requirement for generic image compatibility will be extending to the kernel, on devices that are actually shipping to users. Treble's launch triggered a sort of second wave within the custom ROM scene, as it meant they no longer strictly needed to be ported to devices on an individual basis -- a limitation which up until now has still existed for the kernel.

Some particularly interesting details around this are that a custom kernel is required to run Halium (a GNU compatibility layer for Android devices that allows images like Ubuntu Touch to be loaded as GSIs), and that Android 11 can actually boot on a minimally-patched mainline assuming that all necessary drivers exist.